Page 6 of Their Wildest Dreams

Harriet rose and walked to the window. From there she could see the roofs of the tenant cottages and, beyond them, the bare trees lining the eastern road. Selby had made no effort to hide what would happen if he took the land. Some tenants would be turned out. Others would face rents they could not pay. Her father would lose the income from the farms and, in time, perhaps the house as well.

She had spent years trying to persuade him to let her help. Now the only help anyone required from her was a wedding.

“You need not agree,” her father said.

Harriet turned. “Do not say that as though refusal bears no cost!”

“It should not cost you your life.”

“Marriage is not death.” But it was. The death of freedom. In these circumstances, the death of choice, of falling in love and marrying on her own terms—if such a thing were ever possible.

“It may feel little better if you despise the man,” her father stated flatly.

She did not despise Benedict. It would have been simpler if she did. He angered her because he was arrogant, intrusive and too often right. He also remembered the names of her father’s tenants, listened when others dismissed her, and had once ridden six miles in a storm to fetch a physician for a groom’s child. He’d even carried her miles cross-country to see her safely home after she’d turned her ankle. Harriet knew better than most that his coldness was more manner than feeling. When one looked beneath his austerity, there was a well of compassion and kindness. And that irritated her more than anything else about him. Because he was simply too blasted perfect. It made every petty and ungenerous thought which crept into her head worse by comparison.

Knowing what she did of him, both bad and good, did not mean she wanted to marry him.

A knock sounded. Her father’s butler entered and announced Lord Benedict Denham, Viscount Everton.

Harriet’s pulse quickened, an absurd reaction she immediately blamed upon anger. “Send him in.”

Her father started to rise, but she stopped him. “I would speak to him alone.”

“Harriet—”

“If I am expected to consider marrying him, I ought to be permitted a private conversation with him.”

Her father could not dispute it. He left as Benedict entered, and the two men exchanged only a few quiet words at the door.

Benedict looked as he always did, composed and properly dressed, as though nothing in the world could occur without allowing him time to prepare for it. Only the set of his shoulders suggested he was not as comfortable as he appeared.

“You know,” he said.

“I do.” Harriet remained beside the window. “Did you enjoy reviewing the evidence of my father’s incompetence?”

His expression hardened. “No.”

“But you did review it.”

“He asked me to find a way to stop Selby.”

“And your mother found one, unpalatable as it may be.”

“Yes.” Benedict did not attempt to soften it. “I have found no better one.”

Harriet looked away. “How unfortunate for us both that you chose this moment to suddenly not be in possession of every answer.”

“I do not have all the answers. I do not have yours, most specifically.” He crossed the room but stopped well short of her. “You may refuse, Harriet. No one could fault you for it. Not even I. We are— oil and water at best,” he offered with a degree of chagrin.

“We are oil and water. Or perhaps match to tinder, I am uncertain. As for refusal…well everyone keeps telling me that I may do so, but it is a remarkably hollow assurance.”

He ached for her in that moment. Marriage, particularly whom to marry or whose courtship to accept was one of the few choices a woman had in life. That was now being robbed from her. “I know.”

That checked the angry reply she had prepared. Benedict was watching her steadily, but there was no impatience in his face.

“If I refuse,” she said, “Selby takes the farms. He controls the road and the stream. He may force my father from Alderley within a year.”

“Yes.”